A New Life
by The Kraken
Summary: Sequel to The Acheron's Destiny. Can someone marked by war ever truly start life over? Or are they destined to walk a path of violence forever?


A New Life - by The Kraken

Disclaimers: As the sole true representative of God on Earth, I hereby take possession of all things Gundam related. I wish.

Warnings: Violence. I guess that should be a warning for all my fics, but there's some pretty graphic stuff in here, so if you're squeamish, I suggest that you learn how to use the "Page Down" button. Oh yeah, and I guess that there's a little bit of swearing, nothing major.

Notes: This is a sequel to "Gundam Acheron", so it is **recommended** that you read that first.

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**A New Life**

  


The Moon. A large grey orb that orbits around our comfy little planet, Earth. It's also a rather functional debris collection device. Historically, the dark side of the Moon has always been pockmarked by craters acquired when asteroids smashed into its surface. But more recently, the entire surface of the moon has served to collect the remains of the many Mobile Suits that were destroyed in space battles. Space Leo, Taurus, Virgo, all different kinds of suits have found their final resting place on the moon, except for one. Partially due to the fact that only a couple of them were ever destroyed in space, no Gundam carcass ever found its way to the dusty and airless repository.

Until now, that is.

What looked to be the badly burned and mangled remains of a giant Mobile Suit's torso started to be pulled into the gravitational well of the Moon, and began its inorexable descent towards the rocky ground. When it crashed, a couple of pieces flew off, but it remained mostly together, an amazing feat when one considered how damaged and weakened the frame must have been.

One of those pieces was however the cockpit hatch. From the dark void left by its removal emerged a solitary figure. It surveyed the landscape for a minute, then moved off towards the city that it discerned a couple of kilometers away. As it moved off, the figure moved quite stiffly, as if it were badly injured, but still it moved nonetheless. Inside the helmet, a young man's face smiled harshly.

It was time to start life over again.

*************************************************************************** 

Amelia was in a hurry to get to The Artist's Touch before it closed. There was a big sale on, and there was no way that Amelia was going to miss out on the deals. Her haste led her to take a shortcut through the back alleys of the rougher part of the city, which was going to cost her dearly.

To be perfectly fair to the nineteen-year-old, it had never even occurred to her that someone would want to mug her. That's why she was so surprised when the end of the alley was blocked by two rough-looking types with knives. As fear suddenly gripped her, Amelia turned to run back the way she came, only to find the way blocked by a third knife-wielding goon. As the grinning men closed in on her, Amelia gave a brief scream for help before one of the men cuffed her on the side of the head, knocking her to the ground and dazing her into silence.

Just as the robbers were about to get to work, another figure stumbled into the alleyway. The men turned to find a young man, probably in his early twenties, in a space suit with the helmet missing. A shock of spiky black hair covered his head, and his eyes had a determined but slightly unfocused look to them. He moved jerkily, as if unsure what he was doing, and the muggers figured that it would probably be best to at least take care of him before he raised a real ruckus.

The brigand closest to the stranger charged him, knife slashing. Without changing his posture in the slightest, the stranger deftly caught the man's wrist and delivered a crushing punch to his face. The robber collapsed at the stranger's feet, dazed and bleeding, but still conscious. As Amelia and the other two thieves watched, the stranger stamped sharply on the man's throat, not only crushing it, but also sending it splattering across quite an area.

"What the fuck?" said one of the bandits in horrified anger.

Screaming what they would do to the stranger once they got their hands on him, both robbers charged him simultaneously. The stranger seemed to suddenly recognize that there was a fight going on, and his eyes abruptly focused sharply and his posture shifted. Moving almost to fast to follow, he darted inside one attacker's reach and grabbed the top of his head with one hand and twisted powerfully and quickly, snapping the guy's neck. The other mugger went from attack to full retreat in the space of second, and ran off full tilt. Amelia watched, fascinated, as the stranger plucked the knife out of the hand of the man who he had just killed before the body hit the ground. Flipping it so that he held the tip of the blade between his thumb and forefinger, the stranger then whipped it at the back of the third ruffian.

It stuck into the base of his skull, just above the end of the spinal cord, killing him instantly. The fight over, the stranger fell back into his previous half-dead state. Amelia picked herself up off the ground and walked over to the stranger.

"Uh, thanks. I guess."

He turned those unfocused eyes upon her and asked sleepily.

"Do you know a doctor who can be discrete?"

"What?" Amelia was somewhat taken aback by his rather odd question. Then, after a brief examination of the guy, she realized that he was probably really ill so she decided to repay him for saving her life. "Well, I think so. Why discrete?"

"Because I am dead to the world, and I want it to stay that way."

_Weird,_ Amelia thought, _ but then again, he's probably got a good reason. And he did save your life, girl, so you owe him this much at least._ She reached out to take his arm, but suddenly felt his vice-like grip on her wrist.

"It's okay," she said soothingly, "I'm just going to lead you by the arm."

After a moment's consideration, the stranger relaxed and let go of her. She grumbled a bit as she rubbed some life back into her limb, but then took his arm and led him to her doctor.

*************************************************************************** 

Dr. Johansen shook his head and stepped out of the examination room, closing the door behind him. He found Amelia waiting expectantly, and he gave her his report.

"Where did you find this guy?" he asked off the bat.

Amelia was somewhat taken aback by this abrupt inquisition.

"Uh, in the 'low town', why?"

"In a space suit? There's no dock facilities or airlocks anywhere near there."

"I know. Look, Dr. Johansen, I was just about to get mugged when this guy shows up and kills the three guys who were attacking me."

"Hmmpf. It wouldn't surprise me, this guy's a machine. I diagnosed several severe bruises, to bones and kidneys and the like, and some malnourishment, as if he hadn't eaten in a couple of weeks. He had enough water to keep him going, but his suit probably helped with that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a very advanced water reclamation device. Put simply, it recycles his piss and filters it before feeding it back to him."

"Ugh, gross." Amelia made a face.

"Yeah, well, say what you want, but it probably saved his life. You say he killed three men? Did he shoot them?"

"With what? I didn't even know that he had a gun. He just used his hands, and it was over so fast, I couldn't really see what he was doing."

"Well, there is a gun in his suit, but I guess that if he's good enough to kill three men with his hands after going without food for a couple of weeks, I can't wait to see how he does when he's back to full health." Johansen said admiringly.

"So what now?" Amelia asked. "Are you going to tell anyone about him? He asked me to find a doctor that wouldn't talk, but I couldn't think of anyone else to turn to."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm just going to keep him here quietly for a couple of days, then I'm going to ask you to take care of him. Can you handle that?"

"Sure" she said brightly.

"Alright then, run along. I'll give you a call when I want you to come and pick him up."

When she had left, he went back into the examination room to have another look at his extraordinary patient. The man was still lying there naked, a towel draped over his waist for decency's sake, since he had no clothes on under his space suit. As he approached the man and started to count the bullet scars, he suddenly found his wrist trapped in an iron grip. The man's eyes opened, and the hard Prussian blue pupils bored their way through Johansen's skull.

"Relax." Johansen said soothingly, already losing feeling in his hand. "I'm just going to take care of you."

"And then what?" the man asked.

"And then I'll forget that I ever saw you in these circumstances." The man released his hold on Johansen's wrist at that, and the doctor proceeded to rub some life back into his hand. "By the way, what do you want to be called?" Johansen asked.

"I am Michael Lowe." The stranger said simply.

"Right," Johansen said, "well then Michael, if I might make a suggestion, I would grow my hair long. It would make you look less like some recently famous person."

'Michael' smiled as he closed his eyes.

"Thanks for the advice, doc."

*************************************************************************** 

Relena Dorilan sighed. The mountain of paperwork for her to get through, even after her secretary and assistants filtered out and took care of most of it, was still more than any human could be reasonably expected to handle. To make matters worse, she was scheduled to be at the Lunar Conference next month, which played absolute havoc on her workload.

She sighed once more and stared for a moment at the little picture frame on her desk that held a recent photo of a smiling man, in a smart suit, with Prussian blue eyes and his hair in black spikes. Then she turned morosely back to the pile of work that she had to do.

*************************************************************************** 

"Miss Amelia? The phone, for you."

The old servant held out a portable, which Amelia took.

"Hi?" she asked cheerfully.

"Oh, hi Amelia." Dr. Johansen's voice answered her. "Look, your friend is ready to go, so if you could come and pick him up?"

"Oh, sure." she answered. "I'll be right over."

She hung up and handed the phone back to the servant.

"Thanks, Robert." she said before rushing out the door.

"No problem, really." He said to her retreating back. "After all, that's why I'm here."

*************************************************************************** 

Amelia reached Dr. Johansen's office in record time. When she got there, she found him talking to a man with his hair tied back in a very short ponytail. On closer inspection, the man turned out to be the same guy that she had rescued, just with a different hairstyle. He looked a lot better, and the fact that he was wearing black pants and a green T-shirt instead of a space suit made him seem a lot less like someone who had just dragged themselves out of hell by their short nails.

"Ah, Amelia," Johansen said, "Michael here's ready to go. Oh and where do you want me to hold your space suit, Michael?"

"Don't you have a cold storage room in this building?" Michael asked, and Johansen nodded in reply. "Then put it there for now. I might come back sometime and pick it up."

"Will do." Johansen said. "I'll see you later then."

And with that he moved on to take care of some other business. Michael turned to Amelia.

"Thanks for getting me help."

"It was nothing." Amelia said lightly. "After all, you had just saved my life."

Michael smiled a little by slightly curving up one side of his mouth. Indicating the door with a sweep of his hand, he allowed her to go through before he did. As he left, he felt the reassuring slight weight in his pocket of the disguise kit that Dr. Johansen had made for him.

*************************************************************************** 

Lady Une was concerned, not worried. The anti-ESUN sentiment that Heero had stirred up in his attempt to take control of the world hadn't been properly dealt with. Although Heero probably had a plan to get rid of it effectively once it was no longer useful to him, just like with the pirates, he was no longer around to implement it. So Lady Une and the rest of her Preventers had the thankless task of making everything right once again.

She swiveled her chair around to get a better look at the map of disturbances. Currently, she had dispatched her 'bulldog' Chang-Po team to deal with unrest in the L5 Colony Cluster. Quatre, Trowa, and Duo were all doing their level best to keep rebelliousness down in their home clusters, but the L1 Colony Cluster was the worst hotbed of militaristic thought, mostly due to the fact that it was the home of the latest pro-military hero, Heero Yuy himself. Here on Earth things were actually pretty settled, since Heero's influence hadn't ever been strong past the colonies.

"You know," Mariemaia spoke up, "I bet that you would be able to handle the L1 situation if you went personally. You're still pretty popular up there."

"I know, but then who's going to look after Miss Relena?"

"I could. I'm her Vice-Minister, remember? And besides which, you yourself taught me how to fight."

"Yeah, and I suppose that all you're going to be doing is making sure that no yahoo tries to hurt her. Okay, that sounds good."

Mariemaia hugged her mother and walked out of her office and down the hall. As soon as she was sure that there was no chance that Lady Une could hear her, she pumped her fist into the air.

"Yesss! One free trip to the Moon! This is going to be **sooo** much fun!"

*************************************************************************** 

Gunther was waiting for his daughter's return. Although some people might call him paranoid, he would say that he was merely concerned with his family's safety. When Amelia finally did come home, and in the company of some commonly-dressed guy that he had never even met before, his suspicions nearly exploded.

"Hello Amelia," he said mock-courteously, "what did Dr. Johansen want to talk to you about that was so important?"

"Oh God." she groaned, "Dad, please don't go through all that again."

"Amelia Rose! You should be more concerned for your safety! Are you pregnant? Was it this great hulking moron? Tell me, you should know better than to keep secrets from your father!"

"Moron?" the guy asked frostily. "And where would you get such an idea?"

"Only a fool would be doing his best to get my dau-" Gunther Rose tried to sneer, but he was cut off abruptly by the other man.

"You are the fool if you think that I'm that kind of man. I'm a mechanical technician who's currently unemployed, and when your daughter first saw me, I had just sprained my ankle, so she brought me to the doctor and got him to fix me up. When she found out that I was unemployed, she offered me a temporary job here until I could find one in my regular profession."

Amelia was amazed at Michael's story. He had to be very good at thinking on his feet, because she had never mentioned that she lived the life of privilege. Gunther frowned and looked askance at her.

"Is that really true?"

Putting on her best "of-course-so" expression, Amelia replied haughtily.

"Yes, and I would have told you so if you had just given me a chance to explain earlier."

"Well, you should know that we don't really need an extra servant right now. Especially not a mechanic." Gunther said. "So, if you'll be so good as to just run along now..."

"Who said that that's all that I'm good at?" Michael asked rhetorically. "I'm pretty good at almost any kind of manual labour. Besides which, I'm sure that you could use a Mr. Fixit around the place."

Weighing his options, Gunther Rose decided on a rare display of magnanimity.

"Sure. Come on in. But remember, I don't want any slackers around the place. By the way, what did you say your name was?"

"Michael Lowe," he smiled and held out his hand, his deep blue eyes sparkling. "but you can call me Mike if you want to."

*************************************************************************** 

"So you're going to come with me to the Lunar Conference?" Relena asked.

"Yep." Mariemaia replied happily as she breezed through another boring diplomatic request for the Foreign Minister's attention.

"So, what you're trying to tell me is that you conned your mother into sending you on a vacation." Relena said with a sly smile.

Mariemaia's head shot up at that. Relena was still going through paperwork as if nothing were amiss, and wasn't even looking in her direction.

"What?" she spluttered.

"Oh come on now," Relena said, applying her signature to the bottom of the document that she had just finished reading. "you may be able to fool your mother, but you should know that I'm a different matter altogether. Besides which, I know that you've been dying to go to the Moon for quite a while now, and what better way to do so than on 'official business'?"

"Okay," Mariemaia laughed. "I give up. You caught me."

They both chuckled and continued with their work. They were nearly done with the papers, and there were only a few left.

*************************************************************************** 

Robert was trying to imprint on Michael some modicum of understanding as to how one operated in the Lowe household, but he got the distinct impression that he wasn't really being listened to. Michael seemed to be studying the layout of every room that they passed through, as if it might pay off later to know one's way around the house blindfolded.

"Excuse me." He said pointedly in a vain attempt to catch the younger man's attention. "Have you understood a word that I've said?"

"Yes." Michael responded lazily. "But you forgot to mention that we're not supposed to go into the study, and that the third bedroom on right in the upper floor is the guest room."

Robert was amazed. _How did he know that?_ he wondered. However, before he could voice his question, Michael explained himself.

"There's almost no wear on the carpet and walls around the study, suggesting that people barely ever go in there, and you explained what every bedroom was for, except the third one on the right, and you hadn't talked about guest rooms, so I deduced that they were one and the same."

"Where did you learn logic like that?"

"Oh, as a mechanic, you have to learn how to pick up on things that people forget to tell you if you want to stand any chance of doing your job right. All I did was apply it here."

Robert laughed.

"That sounds rather mundane for a skill that most secret operatives in stories would kill to have."

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_About one month later..._

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Lady Une had been in the L1 Colony Cluster for about three weeks before she finally worked up the courage to enter Heero's secret base. No one but the Preventers even knew that it existed, now that its owner was dead. The whole place seemed to reflect the bare functionality that was Heero's trademark, and now that he wasn't here using it the entire complex seemed to be one great big tomb. As she walked through the place, a small section caught her eye. It was a small shrine almost, and Lady Une's interest was piqued.

She bent closer and examined it. It was no more really than a tombstone over the picture of the X-18999 Colony. On the tombstone was engraved the following.

_Adin Lowe, 151-188_

A resting place for the one who never had one.  
Given by a grateful nephew,  
Who owes his skills and life to you.

Lady Une recognized the name from two places. The first was from the official OZ records of the 188 incident on X-18999. An assassin named Adin Lowe had arrived with his young ward and had attempted to kill all the OZ personnel stationed on that colony. After he was killed, the young ward had taken the task upon himself and had destroyed the military facilities before disappearing.

The other place that she recognized the name from was Heero's memorial. On his mother's tombstone, it was apparent that her maiden name had been Lowe. Things clicked in her mind, and she realized that this was a shrine to the man who had taught Heero all those deadly skills that he employed so well.

But one thing bugged her still. What had been the name that Heero had used on that trip to X-18999? He had to have a fake ID, one that would allow him and Adin to enter the colony to carry out their dread purpose. She sat down at one of the many computer terminals that Heero had scattered around the place and searched for 'Lowe' on the world-wide database. Of the many entries that followed, she managed to narrow them down over the course of the next half-hour until she was left with only one.

Michael Lowe, born AC 180, father Adin Lowe, mother unknown.

Out of curiosity she looked up when the fake ID had last been used. When the result came up, she was originally disbelieving, then horrified. She ran quickly over to the complex's Mobile Suit bays, where the Preventers had left their badly damaged Mobile Suits after their last battle against the Acheron. She needed to repair one ASAP and get going.

The most dangerous man in the history of the human race was wandering incognito around the same city as her daughter and Miss Relena.

*************************************************************************** 

Amelia smiled to herself as she watched Michael through a spyhole. Every morning, he would follow the same routine. He'd get up at six, move quietly into the house's gym, and exercise for ten minutes. He would then do what appeared to be weapons practice, with various lengths of wooden rods, for the next ten minutes. Then he'd go and run around the city for another ten minutes before coming back and having a three minute shower. He would then get dressed in the days clothes in under a minute before heading down to the kitchen and having breakfast for five minutes.

He was so precise it was actually funny. And although he was usually a nice guy, he was also occasionally very scary. No one dared ask him about his formative years, he would just glare ferociously and say that they weren't pleasant, in a manner that implied that continuing this line of conversation could very quickly become 'unpleasant'. No one but Amelia knew just how deadly he was, but that didn't prevent them from getting the willies every time he was around. But you had to admit that he was useful around the place, and polite, if a bit remote.

But this morning, Amelia felt like interrupting his careful routine. While this would normally be suicidal, today she had some exciting news that she just couldn't keep in. Hopping lightly over to where he was doing push-ups, she approached him so quietly that she didn't even hear herself. But as she came within a couple of meters of him, he suddenly pushed up so hard from the ground that he went sailing into the air. Executing a flip, he came down on his feet, facing her with that deadly focus that he occasionally got in those deep blue eyes of his. Seeing that it was just her, he straightened with a look of extreme displeasure on his face.

"Yes?" he inquired shortly.

"I thought that you might want to know something exciting!" she said, trying to be cheerful enough for both of them. "We're having a guest over for dinner tonight!"

"Fine. I guess that means that I'll be rearranging furniture then. A welcome change in my daily schedule." he turned away from her and started to get back to his push-ups.

He was bare-shirted, and was wearing only black spandex shorts, so Amelia was able to see the extensive amount of scars that covered his well-muscled back. It looked as if he had been through enough wars to last an entire nation's history. She knelt down next to his head and asked playfully,

"Well, aren't you the least bit interested in who's coming?"

"Not really, who?"

"The Foreign Minister, Relena Dorilan herself! Isn't that so exciting?"

Michael merely grunted and got on with his push-ups. After a minute, he finished, and he looked up at her, a slight smile on his face.

"Since you've already played havoc on my schedule, maliciously and deliberately, why don't we just go out for the whole morning?"

Amelia's face broke out in a huge grin.

"Sure! I'd love to!"

"Alright. Just let me get showered and put some clothes on, and then we'll go."

As Michael went and had his shower, Amelia reflected upon what a good day this was turning out to be.

*************************************************************************** 

Lady Une's reconstructed Taurus was speeding post-haste for the Moon, when she received a communiqué from Earth HQ. Scanning it briefly, she swore. It appeared that the reactor signatures of eleven Leos had been picked up inside the city. That they were there to destroy the conference and kill the Foreign Minister was almost certain. Lady Une sat back and wished that her suit could just go a little faster.

*************************************************************************** 

During their mid-morning break, Relena and Mariemaia headed for a local bistro, where they ordered some of the local specialties. As they chatted and laughed about all the stupid things that the delegates had just said, they heard a slightly familiar whining sound, but they couldn't remember what it was from.

When eleven Leos emerged from the secondary docking area, they realized what was about to happen, and just how powerless they were to stop it. The Leos broke up into two teams, and the bigger one headed for them while the smaller one went for the hotel where most of the delegates slept. It was obvious that someone wanted to completely eliminate everyone who wanted to keep peace in the world. Relena was so jaded by now of attempts on her life that she just continued eating her lunch calmly. Something always turned up and saved her anyway, so why bother panicking?

*************************************************************************** 

When the five Leos passed by them, Michael pulled Amelia back to the wall of a nearby building. Holding her by the shoulders, he looked her in the eyes with such a intense look that she shied away.

"Listen to me Amelia," he said. "don't move from here, no matter what, until there are no more Mobile Suits. Then, run straight home. Don't take any detours, or stops, or anything else. Just go home. Understand?"

"But-" she started, only to be cut off by his harsh demand.

"Just do it. Do you understand?"

Michael was definitely in scary mode, Amelia reflected, so she just nodded her head and leaned back against the wall to see what would happen. Michael ran out to the Leo that was bringing up the rear. He crouched before making a leap that must have carried him up at least four meters, a superhuman feat if ever Amelia had seen one. He then proceeded to use cracks and chinks in the old Leo's armour to climb up to the cockpit, where he activated the emergency hatch release. Amelia watched, amazed, as Michael reached in and grabbed the unfortunate pilot and threw him out into the open air. The pilot flailed his arms and legs desperately, but that didn't prevent him from landing with a sickening crack as his neck was snapped like a pencil.

Michael's Leo then raised its beam rifle and blasted apart one of the other Leos before anyone even realized what was happening. As they started to turn, he fired again, sending beams crashing through the torso and cockpit of a second Leo. The command Leo, distinguishable by the shield on its left shoulder, drew one of its beam sabers from behind the shield and slashed at Michael. Michael's Leo danced to the side of the cutting arc, and then he executed a fairly unique maneuver in the history of Mobile Suit warfare.

Michael tossed the beam rifle to his left hand and reached with his right behind the other guy's shield before he could bring the beam saber back up. Michael drew out the second beam saber and activated it before it was even clear of the shield. As he withdrew it, he swung it in an arc and sliced right through the other Leo's chest and cockpit. He turned to the last Leo, whose pilot was by now completely terrified of this unknown assailant, and raised the beam saber high above his head.

"Please, Nooooo!" the pilot screamed over the Leo's external speaker system, but it was not enough to move his opponent.

Michael brought the beam saber down in an arc that slashed through the Leo lengthwise, killing the pilot. He then moved on to another part of the city, where his radar said the other suits would be, leaving Amelia standing next to the wall in complete shock at his efficiency and brutality. She had forgotten just how merciless he could be in a fight, but suddenly she was reminded of how he had one time deliberately crushed the throat of an opponent that he had already defeated.*************************************************************************** 

When one of the Leos finally noticed where the Foreign Minister was, Relena was starting to get worried. She had heard the sounds of beam rifles being fired, and she knew that the hotel must now be nothing more than a smoking pile of rubble. Nothing had turned up to save her so far, and she was just resigning herself to her fate when another Space Leo came flying from the hotel's direction, a beam saber in one hand and a beam rifle in the other. Relena and Mariemaia both thought that it was just more reinforcements until it slashed through one of the terrorist Leos, then turned and hacked apart another Leo. When the remaining four Leos turned their beam cannons on it, it leapt straight at one of them in a vertical jump with a corkscrew flip that rolled it 360 degrees. As it passed under the shots aimed for it, the flip brought the beam saber scything through one Leo, and another fell victim to the newcomer's upside-down shooting. The "friendly" Leo somehow managed to come out of that jump on its feet, and as it stood back up, it swung its beam saber in a backhand arc that cut through the Leo at the waist. The last terrorist Leo drew its beam saber and slashed at the friendly Leo, which just blocked it with its own beam saber. The new Leo then put its beam rifle to the cockpit of its enemy and fired once.

*************************************************************************** 

Lady Une reached the scene just in time to see one Space Leo dispatch another six effortlessly. As she watched it at work slicing through its enemies with its beam saber, her suspicions about its pilot were confirmed.

Only one person was able to pull off that fighting style. And he was dead as far as most of the world knew.

But Lady Une knew better. Transforming her suit from cruise mode to humanoid form, she landed her white Taurus behind his Leo and called to him.

"I know who you are, Michael."

She had hoped that the use of his pseudonym would persuade him to give himself up, but she turned out to be sorely mistaken. A message flashed up on her screens, text only.

_Then I'll just have to make sure that knowledge dies with you._

And the Leo turned to face her, discarding its beam rifle. The message was clear, its pilot wanted a duel that would minimize civilian casualties. Grimly, Lady Une drew both of her beam sabers and prepared to once again fight the world's greatest warrior.

*************************************************************************** 

Relena had felt somewhat vindicated when the strange Leo had appeared and ruthlessly dispatched the six Space Leos that had come to kill her, but now that Lady Une had appeared to confront it, worry started to build again. She didn't know who this Michael fellow might be, but she did know that he had just displayed a skill on the level of the great Gundam pilots. When both the Leo and the Taurus prepared to duel, she wondered if he was good enough to be able to prevent Lady Une's clear hardware advantage from winning the fight within a minute.

Mariemaia had no doubts as to who would win this duel, not only was the Leo pilot out-gunned and outdated, but he was also facing Lady Une. And you had to be **really** good to beat Mariemaia's mother.

*************************************************************************** 

But from the word go, it became apparent that the Leo pilot was more than a match for Lady Une. He swung his single beam saber back and forth in a flurry of motion that kept every one of Lady Une's attacks at bay. Then, using the boosters in his backpack, he jumped into the air and brought a hail of vicious slashes raining down on the Taurus' head, which Lady Une was only barely able to deflect.

Deciding to take the battle to him, and determined to use her suit's advantages to the fullest, Lady Une jumped back, then up as well, bringing her level with the Leo. Attacking with the full might of her fury, she managed to gradually push him back. They both landed, and engaged once again in a duel of such intensity that it actually started to draw a crowd, rather than scaring people away.

"Even if you do defeat me," Lady Une panted, "what will you do then? How will you escape? Your actions have cornered you."

Her only answer was a chilling laughter, so cold and maniacal that it seemed almost impossible to have come from the throat of a human being. It even stopped Lady Une cold, hardened though she was. The Leo disengaged from the duel and deactivated its beam saber. Then it jetted out over the city, flying at a medium height.

Lady Une was about to rush after it, thinking that he was trying to escape, but then she noticed something else. The cockpit door was opening, and since the Leo was flying belly-down, it was obvious that the pilot was about to commit suicide by dashing himself against the ground. But when a figure finally did fall from the cockpit, too fast to identify, it landed on the roof of a building, then leapt from there to the streets.

_So, you did manage to escape. For now._ Lady Une mused. _But remember this, Heero Yuy. Remember that you can't run forever. One day soon we'll catch you._

Lady Une set her Taurus after the slow-flying Leo anyway. After all, it wouldn't do to let it crash into a civilian building, would it?

*************************************************************************** 

Amelia had actually followed Michael's instructions, and had headed for home after he had moved on from destroying the other Mobile Suits. Suddenly a shadow loomed over the whole street, and she looked up to see a Leo flying over her. The cockpit opened, and someone fell from a height that should have guaranteed instant death. But they instead landed on the roof of a nearby building, and then jumped into the streets. As the figure dashed off, she recognized it as Michael. She also noticed that he wasn't running well, it seemed as if he had sprained his ankle.

"From that height, you should have broken every bone in your body." Amelia muttered to herself. "But then again, I suppose that you're tough enough to go to hell and back and still have enough strength left to kill a band of muggers."

*************************************************************************** 

Dr. Johansen was finishing his checkup with a patient when the invading Mobile Suits appeared on a live broadcast. As both he and the patient watched, fascinated and horrified that people were still bent on using those weapons of destruction, they saw the incredible drama unfold. One suit suddenly turned on the other ten and destroyed them as if they had been wax figurines. Then a white suit, its pilot identified as Lady Une, had appeared and challenged the unknown pilot. After a spectacular duel, the unknown man executed an even more spectacular escape, leaping from a moving Mobile Suit and disappearing into the streets of the city.

Johansen was just seeing his patient out of the door when 'Michael' limped into his office. Michael took one look at the other patient and said to Johansen in a very friendly, good-citizen voice.

"Oh, are you busy doctor? I'm sorry to trouble you, but I think that I just sprained my ankle at the gym."

While Johansen may personally have doubted that, he knew what his role was in this, so he responded with an equally helpful voice.

"No, no, it's alright Mr. Lowe. I was just finishing up with Mr. Caraggio here. Go on into the examining room, I'll be right through."

After he had seen the unsuspecting Caraggio off, Johansen entered the examining room and shut the door behind him.

"Was that you in the Mobile Suit?" he asked.

'Michael' glared sullenly at him, but answered nonetheless.

"Yes, you know it was. And, of course, I sprained my ankle with that jump. I want you to have a look at both my ankles for hairline fractures, badly strained muscles that might suddenly rip, or anything like that."

"Okay," Johansen said, getting out the necessary gear. "but you've got to tell me one thing. How did you get to be so tough?"

"Advanced, mostly experimental, medical techniques. Low frequency vibro-treatments to increase bone and muscle density, gene therapy, advanced drugs, and other things in that genre."

"Amazing." Johansen muttered appreciatively. "It obviously worked pretty well. It probably saved your life more than once."

'Michael' smiled wryly.

"You have no idea.

*************************************************************************** 

It was fairly sad, Lady Une reflected, that Relena had endured so many assassination attempts that she was able to recover from this one instantly and insist on carrying out the rest of her schedule for that day as planned. Since they were due to have dinner at plastics tycoon Gunther Rose's house that night, Mariemaia had insisted on dragging her mother along too.

Lady Une had spent what little free time she had that day pouring over forensics reports for the last six weeks, starting with the day that Heero Yuy had fought his battle for control of the world. She was looking for particularly brutal killings, as she was pretty sure that some time or another he would have been forced to defend himself, and she knew that in that situation he would just kill his assailants.

Just before Mariemaia arrived to drag her away, she hit the jackpot. A gang of three convicted robbers had been found in a back alley, brutally murdered. One's face had been pummeled with something nearly as powerful as a sledgehammer, and his throat had been crushed so badly that squished was a better description of the fatal wound. Another had his neck broken, but no marks on him otherwise, and the third man had been found a little ways away, almost as if he had attempted to flee the carnage, with the knife of the second thug buried deep in the back of his head.

The incident had occurred about a month ago. _Gotcha!_ Lady Une thought victoriously. _Now all I have to do is find out where you've gone and hidden yourself._

*************************************************************************** 

When Relena and co. finally arrived at the Rose household, they found the entire place laid out for their visit. Gunthar Rose himself greeted the dozen or so guests at the door, and even the slightly preoccupied Lady Une was impressed by the lengths to which he went to make his guests comfortable. They all milled around for a while, admiring the house, before their host announced that dinner was ready.

During dinner, the conversation was pretty much the usual small talk. Nothing really stood out in Lady Une's mind until the servants brought desert. As they left again, she noticed that one of them, a fairly tall and well-built man with his hair tied back in a ponytail, was limping slightly, as if his ankle was sprained. Mumbling her excuses, she got up from the table and followed him discretely. He went through a couple of hallways before entering what appeared to be a small gym.

She had only taken a few steps into the room when she felt the cold metal of a gun nozzle press against the back of her neck. She had no doubts whatsoever of the willingness of the gun's owner to pull the trigger should he have to.

"Heero..." she said.

A small chuckle escaped the lips of the unseen gunman. She heard the door close gently, sealing them off from the rest of the house's inhabitants. Heero's voice rang out in her ears, saying,

"I must admit, I am impressed. How exactly did you find out about my alternate identity?"

"I found your memorial to your uncle, and that got me thinking about how you managed to get into X-18999. I looked it up out of simple morbid curiosity, but when I saw when it had last been used I knew that you still had to be around."

"Why?" Heero/Michael asked. "Why did you come after me? Why not just let me live this new life that I've found?"

Lady Une smiled ruefully.

"Because of who you are. You are the deadliest person ever to walk in the midst of mankind, and you attempted to conquer the world. Would it not be better, from my perspective, to take care of you once and for all while you're weak?"

"Perhaps, but I have no desire to do so. I have finally managed to make some modicum of peace with myself, and now you force me to kill you. It's tragic, really."

"Heero, why do you have to kill me?"

"I don't, and that's the funny thing. I rather not have my new persona labeled as a murderer, but I don't see what else I'm to do if I want to make sure that you won't let my secret out."

Lady Une was about to reply, asking Heero to think it over and give himself up, when the door opened and two more people came in.

"I think that Michael's in here, Miss Relena." Amelia said, leading her guest in. "You really have to meet him, he's..."

She trailed off at the sight of the ponytailed man holding a gun to Lady Une's neck. The man didn't turn around, he just lowered the gun. Lady Une turned around and faced him, looking up slightly at his face. He was scowling, but his expression quickly turned to that of one who has just thought of a great joke. He winked to Lady Une, then charged one of the big windows set along the far wall and threw himself out of it.

"Who was that?" Relena demanded of Lady Une. "And why did he have a gun to your head?"

Lady Une was herself still figuring out what to do with Heero. She didn't bother to go and check below the shattered window for a body, she knew that there wouldn't be one. She decided instead, at least for the moment, to play along with his alternate identity game.

"**That** was Michael Lowe," she told the Foreign Minister, "and he's wanted by the Preventers because we suspect him of being a big assassin during the wars of the last century. I guess that I was actually rather lucky that you showed up when you did, otherwise you might be having to call the coroner right now.

Her little bit of black humour didn't seem to relieve Relena's tension one bit though. Relena had been struck by just how similar Michael seemed to be to her dear, departed, Heero. And Amelia was wondering who Michael could have killed that would have upset the redoubtable Lady Une.

*************************************************************************** 

First thing the next morning, 'Michael' turned up at Dr. Johansen's office. He had a couple more cuts than he had sported yesterday, but there was an intense look of determination in his eyes that would not be put off.

"I've come for my suit." was all he said.

And Johansen had to agree that it was all that needed to be said. Michael was obviously on the run now, so Johansen handed him his suit and a small first aid kit, just in case, and bid him good luck.

It was about three hours later when Lady Une and the cops came. Johansen was as helpful as possible, emphasizing the fact that he thought that Michael was just some injured spacenaut and that Johansen had merely been upholding the finest traditions of the world's medical community by helping him out. Lady Une might have scowled the whole time, but she was satisfied nonetheless, and left after taking a sample of the blood that had dripped onto the cold storage room's floor from Michael's suit.

After they had left, Johansen enjoyed a good chuckle at their expense. They would have to be really good if they wanted to catch up with Heero Yuy, and they would have to be even better to prevent him from killing them outright if they did find him.

*************************************************************************** 

"...No, no, no, no," Relena muttered rhythmically to herself as she checked off the lists of names. The computer's screen was displaying several pages worth of information on several people called 'Michael Lowe', but none of it seemed to fit. "no, no... what?"

"She paused when she came to one particular set of records. It was highly irregular in the fact that it was very incomplete. A birth record, intermittent records for the first seven years of the subject's life, followed by fourteen years of absolutely nothing, then suddenly a college diploma a year ago and then more intermittent records. The whole thing was patchily put together, as if it were the legal records of someone who lived in society's shadows, seemingly corroborating what Lady Une had said.

But Relena didn't trust Lady Une on this one. Besides which, the whole thing looked more like a set up alter ego that someone in need could fall back upon. A couple of typed commands brought up a recent picture of this Michael Lowe, and Relena's breath caught in her throat. The eyes were a different colour, and the person in the photograph had a ponytail instead of spikes, but apart from those details the face staring at her from the screen was the spitting image of Heero Yuy.

"So..." she mused, trying to figure out what he was thinking. "What exactly are you doing in hiding, Heero? If you wanted to take over the world, you need only show yourself in public, and people would take you for a god. After all, not even the great Tallgeese's main weapon could kill you. So you must want away from all of that."

_But what about Lady Une? Why were you two fighting if Heero is no longer an enemy?_ The thought popped into her head. She didn't ponder that one long, since the answer was fairly obvious.

"They're warriors, and the only way that they know how to deal with enemies is to kill them. Heero's recent role made them enemies, and now they're trying to finish each other off."

Shaking her head, Relena logged out, taking care to clear up after herself. One of the biggest mistakes people ever made was to underestimate the intelligent and perceptive young lady, and this time she was going to make sure that both Heero and Lady Une learned their lesson.

*************************************************************************** 

The next week was absolute hell for Lady Une and the rest of the Preventers. They were all out on high alert looking for traces of 'Michael Lowe', and only Lady Une knew his true identity. She had managed to convince them that he was the first cousin of Heero Yuy, and apparently they had all bought the story.

Since they didn't know exactly what Heero's plans would be, Lady Une decided to go back to Heero's former lair and fix up a couple more of the Taurus suits in case he decided to use Mobile Suits against them again. She left Mariemaia in charge of watching over Relena and the remaining Space Leo, and then set off in her Taurus for the L1 Colony Cluster.

She arrived there in secret and went straight to the hidden section of one of the colonies that masked a Mobile Suit hangar. After dismounting from her Taurus, she looked around to see what she had to work with. A rapid inventory showed that she would be able to get three Taurus suits and one Serpent back online fairly easily, but it also revealed something else. It was the sight of this that made Lady Une's breath catch in her throat.

In one of the previously empty hangar slots stood the Tallgeese II, the suit that Treize Kushrenada had piloted to his death. In fact, the centre of the suit, where the cockpit and reactor should have been, was just a gaping hole. _His Excellency..._ she thought, before coming to an abrupt realization. _Wait a minute, that wasn't here a week ago, when I was last in here! Which means..._

Lady Une started to whirl around, but wasn't fast enough to dodge the crushing blow delivered to the side of her head. As she sank into the blackness, Heero's face appeared briefly before everything went blank.

*************************************************************************** 

Lady Une woke with a headache, and was so preoccupied with it for a moment that she didn't realize where she was. Then she sat bolt upright when that knowledge hit her. She was on the floor of Heero's lair, and Heero was in the room.

Except that he wasn't. Lady Une sat as still as she could for a very long couple of minutes before finally stirring and having a look around. Not only was there no sign of Heero, but the corpse of the Tallgeese II was also gone. Swearing, she dragged herself to the comm arrays. She **had** to warn the others about this.

*************************************************************************** 

When they received Lady Une's urgent communiqué, Sally expected Wufei to go off the wall. But, strangely enough, instead of getting worked up over where this mystery assassin had suddenly ran off to, he just sat back and smiled. Or, more precisely, _smirked_.

Which was why they found themselves in an illegally armed freighter, speeding full tilt for the remains of L5's A0206 Colony, the former home of the Long Clan. Wufei's face wore a determined scowl, and Sally was demanding an explanation for their breakneck speed towards a Colony that had been deserted for well over eight years. No matter the resolve of any man, Wufei was doomed in the face of persistent female enquiry.

"Alright, alright!" he exploded in capitulation. "I'll tell you. Now, will you please just **shut up**?"

Now it was Sally's turn to smirk. Grumbling, Wufei launched into a brief explanation of his logic.

"This Michael Lowe guy has got his hands on a Tallgeese, but it's badly damaged, right? So, where will he find replacement parts? To make them would mean that he would need a facility like Lake Victoria or Heero's Lair. We know that he doesn't have either of those, because we have guards posted over them. So, he'll have to salvage them from another Tallgeese model. Since the one piloted by Zechs was destroyed in deep space, finding its remains would be a miracle. So, that leaves-"

"The Long Clan Tallgeese!" Sally interrupted. "I remember it now! But wasn't your colony destroyed?"

"Yes," Wufei answered, irked that she had guessed correctly. "but Nataku's Tallgeese was entombed in a giant sarcophagus, which probably survived the self-destruct largely intact. I just hope we get there before this Michael Lowe has the chance to open that sarcophagus."

Sally couldn't help but agree. The memory of the destruction that Heero Yuy had wrought single-handedly only two months ago was still fresh in her mind. She had nearly been killed in that battle, and this time, they didn't even have any mobile suits of their own with them. If Michael Lowe managed to get a Tallgeese unit operational, they would all be in very hot water.

*************************************************************************** 

The ruins of the A0206 colony looked especially horrible, floating dead and shattered through space, still in their orbit around a world that had not even noticed their passing. Sunlight played through the many holes in the structure, giving an appropriately etheral look.

Under Wufei's expert guidance, the freighter dodged through those holes, passing from section to section, all the time approaching the centre of the colony. Sally noticed that Wufei's body was stiff, and his gaze never wavered from directly ahead to look at the ruins all around him. _I guess that it's still pretty hard for him to take, even after eight years._ Sally realized. _You can't blame him, though. After all, his entire family was killed here._

A large structure loomed in front of them, but instead of dodging around it, Wufei brought the freighter up short and stopped it in front of one facing. Sally realized that this had to be the sarcophagus that Wufei had been talking about. His assessment had also been right, even though its surface was pock-marked by blast craters, it was still largely intact.

It was also, Sally saw to her horror, open. She could hear Wufei's heavy breathing, showing that he was very upset about this, but that didn't seem important now. What seemed important was the figure that was emerging from the huge structure.

A giant white hand gripped one side of the doorway, and the rest of the figure emerged slowly into the light, like some metallic giant rising from its dark grave. Which was exactly what was happening.

The Tallgeese II stood up to its full height before them, still sporting the personal white-and-blue paint scheme of its late owner, Treize Kushrenada. It regarded them impassively for a moment, then raised its dober gun and drew a bead on them.

"**Grave robber!!!**" Wufei screamed suddenly, and fired the freighter's beam cannons.

The Tallgeese reacted instantly, flinging itself to the side. The beams crashed into the tomb, adding more blast marks to the the already much-abused surface. The Tallgeese wasted no time though, and started firing the dober gun. In the cramped quarters there was not much room to maneover, but Wufei was actingly like a single-mindedly psychotic maniac now, and it was all that Sally could do to hang on as the former Gundam pilot jinked furiously and fired a second volley at his enemy.

"Don't you know to leave the dead in peace?" Wufei screamed into the comm.

Sally noticed that he had reverted to the fury and turmoil that had dominated his life throughout AC 195 and 196. It scared her that someone so strong as him could be so deeply shaken by this. But the reply of the Tallgeese's pilot scared her even more.

"I am the dead." said a familliar cold voice. "Why could I not be left in peace?"

"Heero..." Sally whispered in recognition.

"Dammit!" Wufei swore.

Just then another voice rang out on the comm.

"Wufei! Sally! Get out here!" Lady Une ordered urgently. "You can't hope to stand up to him with that freighter."

Wufei just grunted and brought the ship around in such a tight turn that Sally was thrown violently against the restraints on her seat. _Good thing that I remembered to put those on._ she thought. And then they were away, speeding out through the ruins of the Long Clan's colony.

But the Tallgeese sped after them, firing every time it got even half a chance. For all Wufei's skill, they were still hit badly a couple of times. They were loosing fuel, and a couple of the engines were down, and Sally was wondering if they were going to make it.

Then suddenly they were out in the open. In front of them hung a pair of double Moblie Suit Carriers, one with a Serpent and a Taurus, the other with just two Taurus suits. The Serpent and first Taurus came to life, and Lady Une called them again.

"The other two suits are for you guys. Get into them and give us a hand. We'll try to hold him off for as long as we can."

"Hurry up!" Mariemaia called from the cockpit of her Serpent. "We need all the help we can get against this Michael Lowe guy!"

Cold laughter filtered through the comm. They turned to see the Tallgeese emerge from one of the holes in the colony's side.

"Didn't you tell them, Anne?" Heero asked, mockingly. "Didn't you tell them that they were going against The Perfect Soldier? Didn't you let them know how helpless they would be if I actually got back on my feet?"

At the reference to his nickname, Mariemaia gasped. She had very seldom known terror in her life, but this was one of those times. She tried to fight against the cold waves of fear that coursed through her, and she took comfort in Lady Une's voice when it replied.

"I didn't want to cause panic," Lady Une explained. "I wanted to keep this all quiet."

"It's quiet out here." Heero pointed out. "No one will watch you die." He sighed, almost sadly. "You really should have just left me in peace."

And suddenly he was on the offensive again, drawing a beam saber in his left hand and keeping the dober gun attached to his right arm. He let off a couple of shots at Mariemaia's Serpent to keep her on the defensive while he charged Lady Une. Lady Une herself had a beam saber in each hand, but just as in the last fight, Heero's superior skill gave him the advantage, and now that he had a better suit it was all that Lady Une could do to keep him from gutting her.

_Hurry up Wufei and Sally!_ she pleaded mentally. _I can't keep this up much longer._

And then suddenly the Tallgeese disengaged from the hand-to-hand fight. Lady Une was temporarily relieved, until she realized what Heero was doing. The Tallgeese closed rapidly on Mariemaia's Serpent, expertly dodging the hail of gatling fire aimed at it. A well placed dober gun shot pierced the armour in the Serpent's left shoulder, setting off the missiles contained within. The resultant explosion blew off the left arm of the suit, and caused Mariemaia to scream wordlessly in fear. With his opponent off-balance, Heero closed in for the kill, swinging his beam saber in a deadly arc.

Which was only intercepted at the last second by Wufei. As one of his beam sabers held Heero's own beam saber off Mariemaia, Wufei brought the other around in backhanded slash that cut the dober gun in two. Heero disengaged again and discarded the useless weapon, drawing his second beam saber in its place. Lady Une pulled up beside Wufei, and the two sides started each other down for a minute before launching themselves into a furious melee.

Sally sat back with a beam rifle in one hand and a beam saber in the other, looking for an opening. It wasn't easy. The three of them were moving around so much that she was more likely to hit one of her friends than Heero.

Mariemaia too sat back and waited. She had recovered from Heero's assault, and was now looking for a chance to get even with him. Fortunately for her, she had been hit on the left side, not the right, so she still had her dual gatling and half her missiles. Come to think of it, this battle wasn't half as bad as the last time she had faced Heero Yuy. Then he had piloted a Gundam that was nearly unstoppable, a Gundam that had taken a horrible beating and had still somehow continued to fight and win. This time, all he had was the Tallgeese. Admittedly, that was a lot, but it wasn't the Acheron, not by a long shot.

The same thoughts were running through Heero's head, although to a slightly more depressing note. The two people he was fighting with were actually very good, and Heero knew that he would be unable to win this fight if he continued fighting conventionally. He only had a pair of close-combat weapons, and no ranged weapons. Eventually he would either let one of Wufei's or Lady Une's attacks through, or he would stay still long enough for Sally or Mariemaia to blast him. He had to think of some way to turn this to his advantage. He smiled ferally to himself as he worked out a rough plan.

Abruptly, the Tallgeese broke off from the two Taurus suits and flew off in a wide loop. Since he was now clear of their friends, Sally and Mariemaia both opened up with a hail of fire. As Heero's loop brought him near Mariemaia, she fired most of her remaining missiles at him, sending them chasing up his tail. The Tallgeese was only barely fast enough to keep ahead of them, and they were still closing inorexably upon it.

As the Tallgeese continued its loop, heading for Sally this time, Heero's plan became clear to Wufei. Frantically, he screamed a warning.

"Watch out, Sally! He's going to hit you with the missiles!"

But the warning was too late. Heero passed so close to Sally that you couldn't have fit a rat into the space between their suits. Suddenly Sally found herself in the path of a half-dozen missiles, and she only had enough time to throw her Taurus' arms protectively in front of the cockpit before they hit. And it was a good thing that she was able to do that, because half of the missiles hit those arms.

Heero headed away from the wreck of Sally's Taurus, back towards Mariemaia's Serpent, and this time Lady Une and Wufei moved to intercept him. But he quickly changed his apparent target and came straight for Lady Une. Caught by surprise, Lady Une was only able to block one of the incoming attacks, and Heero cut off one of her arms. Then he was away again, before Wufei had a chance to corner him.

Again he came at Mariemaia, and then he changed his course towards Wufei. Ready now for this sudden attack, Wufei was nonetheless left hanging when Heero veered at the last second back for Mariemaia. Using his shield to catch the bullets from the young girl's desperate gatling burst, he slashed her remaining hand off at the elbow.

But in that short second, as the glowing blade passed through her Serpent's arm, Mariemaia saw that Heero's side was open to her. Reacting quickly, she fired the only weapons left to her, and sent a pair of missiles crashing into the Tallgeese's exposed side.

But the Tallgeese was tough, and although the missiles had done considerable damage, they hadn't affected anything vital. More importantly, they threw him off balance long enough for Wufei and Lady Une to catch up with him. Once again, Heero found himself fighting off the determined pair. To his relief though, he had evened the odds considerably. Sally's Taurus was a write-off, and Mariemaia's Serpent was armless and weaponless, and equally importantly, Lady Une's Taurus only had one arm left.

But that didn't deter any of his opponents. In fact, it only added to their determination to see him defeated. Wufei was a dervish, attacking so furiously that he managed to score a couple light hits, and Lady Une was still a threat.

But suddenly there was an opening, and Heero thrust a beam saber through the eyepiece and head of Lady Une's suit, effectively ending her participation in the fight. Even as she was defeated though, she managed to score a raking hit along the back of his arm, causing severe damage. Left exposed by his attack, Heero still managed to block Wufei's counter-attack, catching one blade with one of his own and using his shield to stop the other blade.

"And then there were two..." Heero said harshly. "It's down to us again, Wufei. Just you and me fighting in yet another pointless battle."

"I don't care if it's pointless!" Wufei snarled. "I shall defeat you, even if it's the last thing I do!"

And without further ado, the two former comrades started to fight. Mariemaia watched, almost mesmerized, as the pair slashed and parried and countered perfectly, with a skill so rare that it was almost beautiful to watch in action. First one, then the other would appear to gain the upper hand, only to lose the advantage.

And then it was over, one of the Tallgeese's beam sabers cutting a deep slash across the Taurus' chest, cutting through vital systems and disabling the Mobile Suit. Wufei screamed in impotent rage as he watched Heero raise his other saber for the killing stroke.

But the stroke never came. Instead, the Tallgeese was hit suddenly in the back by a volley of beam rifle fire. Wufei looked past the Tallgeese to see a Space Leo diving out of the sun. Heero also saw this new challenge, and spun to meet it, even though his suit was already badly damaged and at the limits of its endurance.

Wufei felt the hope that had welled up in him at the sight of the new Mobile Suit dissipate quickly. Heero didn't even move to dodge most of the shots, and it was obvious that the Leo's pilot was extremely inexperienced. As Heero reached it, it brought up a beam saber in its other hand and took a swing at him. Heero blocked the simple attack effortlessly, and swung his second beam saber in an arc that should have cleft the Mobile Suit in two.

But he halted the stroke, simply holding the glowing blade inches from the Leo's metal carapace. Then he laughed. It wasn't the cold laughter that had haunted Lady Une and the other Preventers lately, this was genuine, amused laughter. The laughter of someone who finds something funny.

"Okay, you've made your point, Relena." he said, still chuckling. "Do you have anything else to add?"

Although what Heero had just said might have been unbelievable as far as everyone else was concerned, everyone else nearly had aneurisms when they heard Relena's voice complain,

"Yes, I do have something to add. These things are really hard to pilot."

"It's an acquired skill." Heero admitted. "But I guess that you have some natural talent running in the blood. That's probably how you were able to pilot a Mobile Suit without any sort of training whatsoever. By the way, that's the Space Leo that I used in the Lunar City. How did you get that out of the Preventer impound?"

"Don't give me that irrelevant shit." Relena said bluntly, surprising everyone even further with her coarse language. "You can't just go and run off and do your own thing for eight years, then get my hopes up, and then pretend to die. And then expect to just walk away camly from me. You bastard! You total bastard!" And so saying, she began to slash wildly at Heero with her beam saber. Heero blocked each attack easily, just letting her play out her anger. "I hate you! I hate what you do! I hate how you never let me in!"

Gradually her anger faded, and she stopped her wild attacks. Heero's face appeared on her comunications monitor. His eyes bore that look of concern that occasionally touched them.

"Relena, I'm sorry. I was dead, as far as everyone was concerned. There was no way I could contact you. Not if I was to remain unknown."

"You could have found some way to at least let me know you were alive."

"How? Look at what happened here. As soon as Lady Une discovered that I was alive, she came right after me. I would have done the same in her shoes."

Relena looked Heero's image in the eyes.

"Will you come back with me, Heero? I don't want to be alone forever."

"I can't come back. Having Heero Yuy around would create too many problems, both for you and for me."

Relena smiled slightly.

"Don't be stupid. Heero Yuy is dead. But Michael Lowe, on the other hand..."

Heero also smiled slightly.

"I think that you may have a point. Somewhat silly of me, not to think of that."

"Of course. Now, let's clean up this mess that you just made, we've got to be heading back soon."

Heero's face suddenly turned serious.

"Relena, you do understand that I'm serious about the world needing some military force to protect it? I've fought two battles with the Preventers to get that point across, and I can't just let it drop."

The smile on Relena's face spread.

"I understand your point. I think that it would be alright for you to keep a Mobile Suit to defend the world with if the need arose, just as long as no-one knows about it."

"That sounds alright to me."

"What's this?" Mariemaia piped in. "The Foreign Minister, advocating disobedience to her cause?"

"Oh shut up, will you?" Relena laughed.

*************************************************************************** 

_One month later..._

*************************************************************************** 

The man looked up at the giant form of the Tallgeese II. Its brother, the Tallgeese Kai, or more accurately, what was left of the Tallgeese Kai, stood next to it. Around the large hangar, several Mobile Suits stood in various states of disrepair. The only intact suits were the Tallgeese II and a Space Leo standing nearby.

"Well, it seems that you've given me two Mobiles Suits now, Treize." the man said, apparently speaking to the Tallgeese II. "I'll try to take better care of this one than I did with the Epyon. Well, I have to go now, someone else needs my attention. I'll talk to you later."

With that, the man turned and walked away from the hangar section of his hidden base. Only he and a few of the top-level Preventers knew that it existed and was still being used. He smiled to himself and shook his head, his ponytail swaying slightly. He didn't mind the ponytail, although he had preferred his old hairstyle, it was simply one of the neccessary changes that had to be done in order to hide his true identity.

He reached the great doors that allowed entry to and from the rest of the colony. He keyed the lock code in and sliped out quickly before the doors closed completely. He then walked a short distance through the bowels of the colony before reaching an service access port that conected to the inhabited part of the colony.

There was a sports car waiting outside. The man got in, but didn't start the car. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a small velvety box, which he snapped open. He stared at the ring and the diamond it held while running over the short speech in his head. After all, it would not do to mess this one up, not that he ever messed anything up. When he was satisfied that he could say the words without any possibility of a mess-up, he snapped the box closed and replaced it in his pocket. Then he keyed the ignition and drove off at a speed that would have shamed the most dedicated speed demon.

In no time he arrived at a fancy hotel. Parking in a convenient spot that happened to be very close to the entrance, he got out of the car and walked into the lobby. The head usher recognized him and came over, all smiles.

"Hello, Mr. Lowe. Miss Dorilan's room is the penthouse on the 12th floor. Good luck." he said with a wink.

"Thanks, Richard." the man replied with a slight smile of his own.

As he entered the elevator, he was struck by one of those odd reflective moods that he seemed to get lately. He had had a checkered life, but that was behind him. Before him was an entirely new life, and it was about to get a lot more interesting. He fingered the box in his pocket and thought about exactly how much more interesting it was about to become.

  
*************************************************************************** 

**Fin**

*************************************************************************** Comments and suggestions are always welcome.  
[ragnar_murray@hotmail.com][1]

   [1]: mailto:ragnar_murray@hotmail.com



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